Bollywood Looks at Affirmative Action

Film-maker Prakash Jha was reminded that he was taking on an unsettling topic when he showed up on Monday for Censor Board clearance for "Aarakshan," his new film about affirmative action in India’s public universities.

Instead of the usual four-member committee, there were nine people waiting for a look at the film, including representatives of communities that benefit from affirmative action, a social activist and a former judge.

"These are very touchy things," said Mr. Jha. Nevertheless, he said they approved the film without making any cuts, which will allow it to come to theaters on Aug. 12, as planned.

"Aarakshan" – a word that in Hindi means reservation, or quota – is the first major Bollywood film to take on the bitterly opposed move to expand India's existing affirmative action program.

The expansion was decades coming, and the path to it has been marked by violent protests by both middle and upper-caste Indians, who stood to lose, and lower caste Indians, who stood to gain.

India's 1950 Constitution requires 22.5% of government jobs and educational places to be reserved for historically oppressed "untouchable" communities, now known as Dalits, and tribal groups. This is a largely accepted program. But in the 1980s a commission recommended that an additional 27% of these places be reserved for "other backward castes" who were also considered to have suffered in India’s caste hierarchy.

It wasn't easy to implement. One government shelved the report. A subsequent prime minister who announced plans in 1990 to implement the recommendations was met with street protests and suicides by upper caste students—including one girl who set herself on fire near a rally he was holding—and found himself booted from power after other political parties reached a deal.

The government began implementing the expansion in jobs in 1992. But universities only began to do so in 2008, after the Supreme Court heard and dismissed challenges to the constitutionality of a law to extend educational affirmative action as recommended.

Mr. Jha said that he aimed to show both the pain of long-oppressed lower caste communities, and the pain of upper caste students who saw their pool of opportunities suddenly reduced.

The movie, filmed in the central Indian city of Bhopal and set in the aftermath of the 2008 court decision, revolves around three characters: the principal of a private college, played by Amitabh Bachchan, a conniving school vice-principal, played by Manoj Bajpayee and a Dalit student, played by Saif Ali Khan.

Mr. Jha said Dalit groups criticized the choice of a "prince" to play the role of Dalit student Deepak Kumar but said he thought the actor worked well for the part of an energetic striver. Mr. Khan is from a former Muslim royal family and is the son of a famous actress to boot. The film pits the character of Deepak Kumar particularly sharply against Mr. Bajpayee's character, who at one point asks the Dalit student, "You’re afraid of work, aren’t you?" Mr. Kumar’s response is sharp.

Mr. Jha said he wanted to point out inconsistencies even in the attitudes of people who might think of themselves as having moved beyond the issue of caste. As in the U.S., with racial affirmative action, many Indians couch opposition to "reservations" in terms of merit – with Indian students echoing white applicants to colleges who complain of being passed over for minority applicants they see as less deserving for having poorer grades.

Mr. Jha said he hears people say things like, "'Would you go to a doctor who has come on a reserved quota?'"

"At the same time, would you go to an upper-caste doctor who hasn’t got admission through competition but who’s bought a seat?" said Mr. Jha.

In another scene described by Mr. Jha, a student sees a procession of lower-caste students and says, "Hail the God Mandal," a mocking reference to B.P. Mandal, the man who presided over the commission that recommended the expansion of affirmative action.

The filmmaker isn't necessarily a fan of affirmative action as it stands, however. He said it appeared to him that, for the most part, groups that affirmative action is meant to aid continued to live in abject poverty even decades later and just a handful manage to benefit. He also said he feels the quota system has made India's education system more mercenary, with students who have enough money to take additional tutoring -- or even purchase a seat -- more likely to get the scarce spots that are not reserved.

Other critics of affirmative action in India have said it made no sense to expand affirmative action in higher education, without first making sure lower-caste groups were getting access to decent primary and secondary education. But proponents of these programs and members of these communities say they have slowly opened doors to long-oppressed groups.

“What effect has Indian affirmative action brought about?” said Mr. Jha. “These are arguments which have never been done in a public medium.”